The semiconductor integrated circuit industry has experienced rapid growth in the past several decades. Technological advances in semiconductor materials and design have produced increasingly smaller and more complex circuits. These material and design advances have been made possible as the technologies related to processing and manufacturing have also undergone technical advances. In the course of semiconductor evolution, the number of interconnected devices per unit of area has increased as the size of the smallest component that can be reliably created has decreased. Additionally, various packaging techniques have been developed to decrease the size of packaged semiconductors.
Among the techniques that have been developed is back-side processing, such as is used in the production of back-side image sensors. Among other benefits, back-side processing allows electrical connectivity between both a front and a back side of a semiconductor wafer. However, certain problems can arise during back-side processing, such as arcing. Therefore, while current back-side processing techniques have been generally adequate for their intended purposes, they have not been entirely satisfactory in all respects.
The various features disclosed in the drawings briefly described above will become more apparent to one of skill in the art upon reading the detailed description below. Where features depicted in the various figures are common between two or more figures, the same identifying numerals have been used for clarity of description. However, this should not be understood as limiting such features.